The UK being "kinda-sorta part of the EU" is not a wonderful thing, but being out of it entirely would be far worse for real people. Fight for more integration with the EU if that's your thing.
I'll note that Scotland would likely become independent and join the EU a few years after a British EU exit, but there's plenty of English, Welsh and Northern Irish people who'd get stuck.
[1] http://www.echr.coe.int/Pages/home.aspx?p=press/factsheets&c...
This creates an interesting political minefield for the UK's current Conservative government, since their stated policy is to abolish the Human Rights Act (the current UK legal foundation for respecting the ECHR) in favour of a British Bill of Rights, yet as of today their stated policy as a government is also to campaign to remain in the EU. These policies seem to be incompatible under Maastricht, not to mention almost polar opposites in the underlying philosophy they represent.
Hardly a "small regional player".
On the other hand I'm tempted to have the anti-EU Brits win and let them see what a disaster that will be for the UK, shutting them up once and for all. Then have them come back with their tails between their legs asking to be let back in.
Reality is that the result will depend on the major newspapers bias, namely Mr Rupert Murdoch. He is traditionally anti-EU, but that has previously been based on back room deals with different political parties promising him one thing or another. Since his fall from grace his power has been somewhat diminished, do it will be interesting to see how the press play this out.
> It’s a peculiarity of this referendum that Commonwealth citizens may vote in it, whereas French, Italians and Germans who have lived here for many years, and are much more directly affected, may not.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/20/how-to-...
The argument runs like this.
The UK's current level of migration is seen as a problem by the current UK government, by a significant proportion of British citizens, and probably even by a good few in the left-leaning parties. While the UK's in the EU, there's almost nothing that can be done to curb skilled or unskilled migration from the EU. Any government of a UK in the EU that wants to curb migration has to do so by clamping down on non-EU migrants. There's already no legal unskilled migrant route to the UK, so that means cutting back on skilled migration.
That clamping down is for me a personal pain, so much of a pain that it feels like every time I see Theresa May in the news it's because she wants to make it harder for me and other non-EU nationals to work in the UK. (I try really, really hard not to hate her.) If the UK left the EU, that'd allow the British government to apply the same rules across the board (to EU citizens as well as non-EU citizens) which'd probably lead to any UK government (from migration-hating UKIP to migration-loving Greens) having a more sensible approach to skilled migration. And not only is that in my own interest as a non-EU Commonwealth national, it's also in the UK's interest as far as having a sensible skilled migration policy goes.
This argument is, of course, too narrow on something as broad as the UK's members in the EU to be enough: it doesn't deal with the host of other things around British EU membership (wealth, security, environment, international influence etc). But my working visa issues are so frustrating that I find it a very, very tempting argument.
The only reason EU countries have border controls on flights landing in their respective countries from the UK, is because the UK applies border controls on their citizens entering the United Kingdom. I can fly from Germany to Spain without ever showing my passport at my destination, but if I fly to and from the UK I need to show my passport on both sides.
I expect this to become 100 fold worse in the UK tries to leave the EU.
That's really unlikely, though that would be a hilarious hit to the "power" of the UK passport (in terms of countries you can enter visa-free).
Not to mention that even a vote to exit will take years and there will be provisions to maintain current status it's highly unlikely that the UK will kick out millions of residents not to mention have to take in millions of UK nationals that are living in other EEA countries (which on it's own could cost the UK economy much more in the short term, as when people are forcibly kicked out of their country are quite often not in the best financial position to make that move).
While it's true that the UK takes in a large amount of EU nationals they export almost as many there is a slight difference that the ones that leave the UK often posses high paying jobs in the first place while many individuals that come in come in often as a qualified job seeker meaning that they might receive more benefits at least initially than paying out as far as taxes go.
This situation is also quite common among immigrants from lower income EU countries like Poland and Romania which also historically exported allot of their income back home, it wasn't that uncommon for them to immigrate to the UK for 3-5 years just to make enough money to buy a house in their home country and then return there which is some what of an issue on it's own also.
There probably should be a better process to ensure that there isn't considerable wealth drain on the stronger economies due to economic immigration but more importantly that there isn't a brain and skill drain on the poorer EU members, pretty much any one I've spoken too from Bulgaria and Romania curses the EU more than your average UKIP voter mostly because it seems that joining the EU caused a massive exodus of anyone who could leave for greener fields which often are the most educated and better off people in the first place, those who can actually drive the country forward.
The problem with term limiting is that you almost ensuring that people will not make long term plans which leads to drain of capital. This is also why for example the current Tier 2 Inter-company Transfer UK visa's are moronic, they force very high minimum pay (50K GBP or more per year) but limit the term to upto 5 years without any option to extend that duration or even switch to another UK visa (with the exception of marriage/partnership).
The idea behind the term limit was to make the local workforce especially in IT more competitive the result was that companies still bring allot of employees from outside of the EU paying them very high salaries, have those employees gain experience and then after 5 years take all their knowledge and capital out of the UK because they can't settle.
The immigration policy in the UK is one of the least efficient and most self defeating immigration policies I've ever seen, it's pretty much structured to shoot it self in the foot every time with idiotic regulations that do no effect those who actually cause the highest financial drain but disenfranchise those who could actually benefit the country.
The EU immigration policy could be more adapted slightly to be better, the general immigration policy in the UK really needs a rework, move to a point based human capital value approach as it's currently one of the few countries that actually would kick out some one who spent 5 years studying in the UK getting a master degree then offered employment with a salary of over 100K$ because they are not from the EU and do not want to provide hospice and nurse the elderly.
What's your reasoning for this? I think it might be attractive versus simply leaving altogether, but who says that's what'll happen?
Consider that the EEA might be unpalatable to people against EU membership due to migration.
EU individuals do not make the bulk of the economic immigration into the UK while making the majority of the high paid migrant workers.
If the UK want to deal with immigration "family" visa's and bogus work permits for people who end up earning below the minimum wage is a far better target than EU nationals.
Perhaps, but I'm not worrying about actual problems here, but rather public perception.
The Bill recognises the Scottish Parliament and a Scottish government as permanent among UK's constitutional arrangements, with a referendum required before either can be abolished. In addition new powers/control given to the Scottish government include:
* The ability to set Income Tax rates and bands * Control over several benefits and removable taxes including Air Passenger Duty and Disability Living Allowance * The right to receive half of the VAT raised in Scotland * Extended powers over Employment Support and Universal Credit
So either UK will be in EU as with all other or not at all. The current state of affairs as we are in EU only for the good stuff mightily annoys me.